The O2 network provider and Nokia have been trialling the sale of smartphones without a charger. Instead customer get a USB cable to charge their phone.

So far the results have been favourable. O2 claim that customers purchasing their top end phones such as Nokia Lumia 925 and HTC smartphones and the Sony Xperia XP have on the whole been happy not to receive a traditional charging unit. 82% of those sold these phones with no charger were happy well exceeding O2’s predicted 70%.

Many customers buying the new smartphones were happy to reuse a charger they already had. Just 10% of their customers have paid an additional £3 to secure a new charging unit.

Mass market phone trial

O2 will now trial the no-charger sale with their ‘mass market’ phones like the Nokia 301.

How convenient would you find this?

Bill Eyres of O2’s Think Big programme responsible for this initiative hopes this group will also embrace the charger-less phone package. He’s very keen that other providers should consider it for the reduction it could see in environmental impact.

Every year more than 30 million new handsets are sold. If every company took this on board, sales of chargers could reduce by 24 million annually. Eyres and the O2 team estimate that there are around 100 million chargers lying around unused in customers’ homes. These will either be duplicates or will be from old handsets. 100 million unused chargers could fill four Olympic sized swimming pools!

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